The following is my most recent attempt at a pair of Lucas Type 2 Irish Shoes. Each shoe is cut from a single piece of 3mm vege tan leather, given 5 coats of saddle tan dye, soles get 3 coats of linseed oil and is hand stitched using 14 foot of 2 ply nylon thread.

I did not use the template given in the Lucas papers as it cannot (imho) be used to give the required finish. If interested people look closely at the template given in the Lucas papers it says - After Lucas - this means that someone added it - ie not Lucas himself. I also say that neither Lucas nor the person who added the template sketch used that template to make a Lucas Type 2 shoe because it cannot work out. I made my own template and after many attempts I have the result as shown above. There is a left and a right cut, i.e. these shoes are handed. I will improve the template on the next pair. These are not turn shoes. That is to say they are not sown inside out and then turned outside in. I chose 2 ply nylon thread as linen thread often breaks when being pulled tight - even the 3 ply linen thread with beeswax breaks. As a style comment - The design of the pointy toe leads me to conjecture that this shoe type was not worn by persons who spent much time on their knees. The Lucas Type 2 is not shown in the Book of Kells. The high status of this shoe style is shown by the engraving and lacing with webbing and the un-necessarily elongated toe. At a later period long pointy toes were banned by the Church in Europe. It may just be that the Lucas Type 2 shoe was worn by Pagan Gaelic Nobles and their Druí...